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does water flow so abundantly and magnificently in fountains of bronze

and marble, from the boat-shaped Fontana della Barcaccia on the Piazza di

Spagna, the Triton on the Piazza Barberini, and the Tortoises which give

their name to the Piazza delle Tartarughe, to the three fountains of the

Piazza Navona where Bernini's vast central composition of rock and

river-gods rises so triumphantly, and to the colossal and pompous

fountain of Trevi, where King Neptune stands on high attended by lofty

figures of Health and Fruitfulness. And on yet another evening Pierre

came home quite pleased, relating that he had at last discovered why it

was that the old streets around the Capitol and along the Tiber seemed to

him so strange: it was because they had no footways, and pedestrians,

instead of skirting the walls, invariably took the middle of the road,

leisurely wending their way among the vehicles. Pierre was very fond of

those old districts with their winding lanes, their tiny squares so

irregular in shape, and their huge square mansions swamped by a

multitudinous jumble of little houses. He found a charm, too, in the

district of the Esquiline, where, besides innumerable flights of

ascending steps, each of grey pebbles edged with white stone, there were

sudden sinuous slopes, tiers of terraces, seminaries and convents,

lifeless, with their windows ever closed, and lofty, blank walls above

which a superb palm-tree would now and again soar into the spotless blue

of the sky. And on yet another evening, having strolled into the Campagna

beside the Tiber and above the Ponte Molle, he came back full of

enthusiasm for a form of classical art which hitherto he had scarcely

appreciated. Along the river bank, however, he had found the very scenery

that Poussin so faithfully depicted: the sluggish, yellow stream fringed

with reeds; low riven cliffs, whose chalky whiteness showed against the

ruddy background of a far-stretching, undulating plain, bounded by blue

hills; a few spare trees with a ruined porticus opening on to space atop

of the bank, and a line of pale-hued sheep descending to drink, whilst

the shepherd, with an elbow resting on the trunk of an ilex-tree, stood

looking on. It was a special kind of beauty, broad and ruddy, made up of

nothing, sometimes simplified into a series of low, horizontal lines, but

ever ennobled by the great memories it evoked: the Roman legions marching

along the paved highways across the bare Campagna; the long slumber of

the middle ages; and then the awakening of antique nature in the midst of

Catholicism, whereby, for the second time, Rome became ruler of the

world.

One day when Pierre came back from seeing the great modern cemetery, the

Campo Verano, he found Celia, as well as Benedetta, by the side of

Dario's bed. "What, Monsieur l'Abbe!" exclaimed the little Princess when

she learnt where he had been; "it amuses you to visit the dead?"

"Oh those Frenchmen," remarked Dario, to whom the mere idea of a cemetery

was repulsive; "those Frenchmen seem to take a pleasure in making their

lives wretched with their partiality for gloomy scenes."

"But there is no escaping the reality of death," gently replied Pierre;

"the best course is to look it in the face."

This made the Prince quite angry. "Reality, reality," said he, "when

reality isn't pleasant I don't look at it; I try never to think of it

even."

In spite of this rejoinder, Pierre, with his smiling, placid air, went on

enumerating the things which had struck him: first, the admirable manner

in which the cemetery was kept, then the festive appearance which it

derived from the bright autumn sun, and the wonderful profusion in which

marble was lavished in slabs, statues, and chapels. The ancient atavism

had surely been at work, the sumptuous mausoleums of the Appian Way had

here sprung up afresh, making death a pretext for the display of pomp and

pride. In the upper part of the cemetery the Roman nobility had a

district of its own, crowded with veritable temples, colossal statues,

groups of several figures; and if at times the taste shown in these

monuments was deplorable, it was none the less certain that millions had

been expended on them. One charming feature of the place, said Pierre,

was that the marbles, standing among yews and cypresses were remarkably

well preserved, white and spotless; for, if the summer sun slowly gilded

them, there were none of those stains of moss and rain which impart an

aspect of melancholy decay to the statues of northern climes.

Touched by the discomfort of Dario, Benedetta, hitherto silent, ended by

interrupting Pierre. "And was the hunt interesting?" she asked, turning

to Celia.

The little Princess had been taken by her mother to see a fox-hunt, and

had been speaking of it when the priest entered the room.

"Yes, it was very interesting, my dear," she replied; "the meet was at

noon near the tomb of Caecilia Metella, where a buffet had been arranged

under a tent. And there was such a number of people--the foreign colony,

the young men of the embassies, and some officers, not to mention

ourselves--all the men in scarlet and a great many ladies in habits. The

'throw-off' was at one o'clock, and the gallop lasted more than two hours

and a half, so that the fox had a very long run. I wasn't able to follow,

but all the same I saw some extraordinary things--a great wall which the

whole hunt had to leap, and then ditches and hedges--a mad race indeed in

the rear of the hounds. There were two accidents, but nothing serious;

one gentleman, who was unseated, sprained his wrist badly, and another

broke his leg."*

* The Roman Hunt, which counts about one hundred subscribers,

has flourished since 1840. There is a kennel of English

hounds, an English huntsman and whip, and a stable of

English hunters.--Trans.

Dario had listened to Celia with passionate interest, for fox-hunting is

one of the great pleasures of Rome, and the Campagna, flat and yet

bristling with obstacles, is certainly well adapted to the sport. "Ah!"

said the young Prince in a despairing tone, "how idiotic it is to be

riveted to this room! I shall end by dying of _ennui_!"

Benedetta contented herself with smiling; neither reproach nor expression

of sadness came from her at this candid display of egotism. Her own

happiness at having him all to herself in the room where she nursed him

was great indeed; still her love, at once full of youth and good sense,

included a maternal element, and she well understood that he hardly

amused himself, deprived as he was of his customary pleasures and severed

from his friends, few of whom he was willing to receive, for he feared

that they might think the story of the dislocated shoulder suspicious. Of

course there were no more _fetes_, no more evenings at the theatre, no

more flirtations. But above everything else Dario missed the Corso, and

suffered despairingly at no longer seeing or learning anything by

watching the procession of Roman society from four to five each

afternoon. Accordingly, as soon as an intimate called, there were endless

questions: Had the visitor seen so and so? Had such a one reappeared? How

had a certain friend's love affair ended? Was any new adventure setting

the city agog? And so forth; all the petty frivolities, nine days'

wonders, and puerile intrigues in which the young Prince had hitherto

expended his manly energy.

After a pause Celia, who was fond of coming to him with innocent gossip,

fixed her candid eyes on him--the fathomless eyes of an enigmatical

virgin, and resumed: "How long it takes to set a shoulder right!"

Had she, child as she was, with love her only business, divined the

truth? Dario in his embarrassment glanced at Benedetta, who still smiled.

However, the little Princess was already darting to another subject: "Ah!

you know, Dario, at the Corso yesterday I saw a lady--" Then she stopped

short, surprised and embarrassed that these words should have escaped

her. However, in all bravery she resumed like one who had been a friend

since childhood, sharing many a little love secret: "Yes, a very pretty

person whom you know. Well, she had a bouquet of white roses with her all

the same."

At this Benedetta indulged in a burst of frank merriment, and Dario,

still looking at her, also laughed. She had twitted him during the early

days because no young woman ever sent to make inquiries about him. For

his part, he was not displeased with the rupture, for the continuance of

the connection might have proved embarrassing; and so, although his

vanity may have been slightly hurt, the news that he was already replaced

in La Tonietta's affections was welcome rather than otherwise. "Ah!" he

contented himself with saying, "the absent are always in the wrong."

"The man one loves is never absent," declared Celia with her grave,

candid air.

However, Benedetta had stepped up to the bed to raise the young man's

pillows: "Never mind, Dario _mio_," said she, "all those things are over;

I mean to keep you, and you will only have me to love."

He gave her a passionate glance and kissed her hair. She spoke the truth:

he had never loved any one but her, and she was not mistaken in her

anticipation of keeping him always to herself alone, as soon as they

should be wedded. To her great delight, since she had been nursing him he

had become quite childish again, such as he had been when she had learnt

to love him under the orange-trees of the Villa Montefiori. He retained a

sort of puerility, doubtless the outcome of impoverished blood, that

return to childhood which one remarks amongst very ancient races; and he

toyed on his bed with pictures, gazed for hours at photographs, which

made him laugh. Moreover, his inability to endure suffering had yet

increased; he wished Benedetta to be gay and sing, and amused her with

his petty egotism which led him to dream of a life of continual joy with

her. Ah! how pleasant it would be to live together and for ever in the

sunlight, to do nothing and care for nothing, and even if the world

should crumble somewhere to heed it not!

"One thing which greatly pleases me," suddenly said the young Prince, "is

that Monsieur l'Abbe has ended by falling in love with Rome."

Pierre admitted it with a good grace.

"We told you so," remarked Benedetta. "A great deal of time is needed for

one to understand and love Rome. If you had only stayed here for a

fortnight you would have gone off with a deplorable idea of us, but now

that you have been here for two full months we are quite at ease, for you

will never think of us without affection."

She looked exceedingly charming as she spoke these words, and Pierre

again bowed. However, he had already given thought to the phenomenon, and

fancied he could explain it. When a stranger comes to Rome he brings with

him a Rome of his own, a Rome such as he dreams of, so ennobled by

imagination that the real Rome proves a terrible disenchantment. And so

it is necessary to wait for habituation, for the mediocrity of the

reality to soften, and for the imagination to have time to kindle again,

and only behold things such as they are athwart the prodigious splendour

of the past.

However, Celia had risen and was taking leave. "Good-bye, dear," she

said; "I hope the wedding will soon take place. You know, Dario, that I

mean to be betrothed before the end of the month. Oh yes, I intend to

make my father give a grand entertainment. And how nice it would be if

the two weddings could take place at the same time!"

Two days later, after a long ramble through the Trastevere district,

followed by a visit to the Palazzo Farnese, Pierre felt that he could at

last understand the terrible, melancholy truth about Rome. He had several

times already strolled through the Trastevere, attracted towards its

wretched denizens by his compassion for all who suffered. Ah! that

quagmire of wretchedness and ignorance! He knew of abominable nooks in

the faubourgs of Paris, frightful "rents" and "courts" where people

rotted in heaps, but there was nothing in France to equal the listless,

filthy stagnation of the Trastevere. On the brightest days a dank gloom

chilled the sinuous, cellar-like lanes, and the smell of rotting

vegetables, rank oil, and human animality brought on fits of nausea.

Jumbled together in a confusion which artists of romantic turn would

admire, the antique, irregular houses had black, gaping entrances diving

below ground, outdoor stairways conducting to upper floors, and wooden

balconies which only a miracle upheld. There were crumbling fronts,

shored up with beams; sordid lodgings whose filth and bareness could be

seen through shattered windows; and numerous petty shops, all the

open-air cook-stalls of a lazy race which never lighted a fire at home:

you saw frying-shops with heaps of polenta, and fish swimming in stinking

oil, and dealers in cooked vegetables displaying huge turnips, celery,

cauliflowers, and spinach, all cold and sticky. The butcher's meat was

black and clumsily cut up; the necks of the animals bristled with bloody

clots, as though the heads had simply been torn away. The baker's loaves,

piled on planks, looked like little round paving stones; at the beggarly

greengrocers' merely a few pimentoes and fir-apples were shown under the

strings of dry tomatoes which festooned the doorways; and the only shops

which were at all attractive were those of the pork butchers with their

salted provisions and their cheese, whose pungent smell slightly

attenuated the pestilential reek of the gutters. Lottery offices,

displaying lists of winning numbers, alternated with wine-shops, of which

latter there was a fresh one every thirty yards with large inscriptions

setting forth that the best wines of Genzano, Marino, and Frascati were

to be found within. And the whole district teemed with ragged, grimy